This conference will bring together Classicists and Assyriologists from Britain, Europe and America in order to foster informed interdisciplinarity in one of the most important and vibrant current debates in ancient scholarship: the interaction between the civilisations of the Near East and Archaic Greece. Though it is now well-established that early Greek literature was to some extent inspired by ancient Near Eastern models, the mechanisms and effects of cultural influence are still hotly debated. This conference hopes to promote a dynamic interface between the two fields, which are still too separate in their activities, and so prone to using isolated or out of date methods in their individual approaches to this common question. The conference is organised by Johannes Haubold (Durham), Adrian Kelly (Oxford) and Christopher Metcalf (Oxford), and supported by the Craven Committee (Faculty of Classics, Oxford), the Classics Faculty Board (Oxford), the Balliol Interdisciplinary Institute, the Jowett Trust (Balliol College) and the London Centre for the Ancient Near East. Confirmed speakers: Mary Bachvarova (Willamette), Bernardo Ballesteros-Petrella (Oxford), Angus Bowie (Oxford), Yoram Cohen (Tel Aviv), Bruno Currie (Oxford), Andrew George (SOAS, London), Andre Lardinois (Nijmegen), Robert Rollinger (Innsbruck), Ian Rutherford (Reading), Frances Reynolds (Oxford), Ruth Scodel (Michigan), Mark Weeden (SOAS, London). Attendance is £20, to help with the cost of lunch and tea / coffee, but free to members of Oxford University. If you wish to attend, please register by emailing Adrian Kelly (adrian.kelly@balliol.ox.ac.uk) or Chris Metcalf (christopher.metcalf@queens.ox.ac.uk). The London Centre for the Ancient Near East (LCANE) is offering a limited number of travel grants to research students at UK institutions wishing to attend the conference: interested students should apply directly to LCANE by sending a CV, a brief cover letter and details of travel costs to the chairman, Dr Mark Weeden (mw41@soas.ac.uk). Grants will be paid out after the conference is finished on receipt of a short report and evidence for payment of travel costs.The deadline for LCANE grant applications is 30 April 2017.

The London Centre for the Ancient Near East is happy to support the second annual conference for 6th formers thinking of taking Egyptology or Ancient Near Eastern Studies at University on March 4th at the Royal Asiatic Society in London, which is organised by Martin Worthington (Cambridge). For details see:

James Fraser from the British Museum reports on the discovery of the head of the Kubaba statue within the framework of the recent Turco-Italian excavations at Karkemish, which fits onto a statue found in the British Museum excavations at the same site 1878-81 (see also talk by Hasan Peker from last year) and a project aimed at digitally re-constructing the statue with its head.

As part of its centenary celebrations, SOAS University of London will be welcoming the acclaimed performance storyteller Ben Haggarty to perform the ancient Epic of Gilgamesh, with musical accompaniment by SOAS-alumnus Jonah Brody.

The Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh is one of the masterpieces of world literature. Exploring mankind’s universal longing for immortality, the poem tells the story of a Babylonian hero’s quest for glory and flight from death.

Ben Haggarty’s performance melds Sumerian and Babylonian narrative poems about King Gilgamesh into a gripping tale of the hero who did not want to die. He takes his inspiration from several translations of the poems, including the Penguin Classic by Professor George.

Professor Andrew George, Professor of Babylonian at SOAS, has been at the forefront of the rediscovery of the story of Gilgamesh. From 1985 to 2001, he toured museums, gathering sources for a new, comprehensive edition of the Babylonian poem from the original cuneiform tablets. His research culminated in the publication of the prize-winning Penguin Classics translation of the epic and related texts in 1999. Most recently, his work hit the headlines when he translated part of a newly discovered clay tablet with fellow assyriologist Farouk Al-Rawi. The tablet offered new insights into the Gilgamesh Epic

The event will be held on Wednesday 8 June 2016 at the Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre at SOAS. Doors open at 5.30 for 6 pm. Attendance is free, seats are available on a first come first served basis, but please go to the following link to register: